Cats in the USA

Goals

Pet Cats USA Dashboard Transform a dataset of pet cats tracked throughout the USA to a dashboard that answers:

• How is the population distributed across sex and life stage?
• How does hunting vary by life stage and sex?
• How does age relate to prey per month?

Data source: data/pet-cats-usa-reference-data.csv

Dataset & Variables

• animal-id: unique cat identifier
• animal-sex: sex (normalized to m, f, unknown)
• animal-life-stage: text containing a numeric age in years
• animal-comments: e.g., Hunt: Yes; prey_p_month: 12
• age_years: (int) derived
• life_stage_bin: {kitten ≤2, adult 2–6, mature 6–10, senior >10} derived
• hunts: (bool) derived, prey_p_month: (float) derived

Methods (Justification)

• Cleaning → transparent and reproducible
• Parsing → variables (hunts & prey/month)
• Binning → interpretable comparisons across life stages
• Mining → counts, distributions, and associations
• Charts → portable, reproducible, and informative

Setup and Cleaning

Before analysis, we prepared the dataset to ensure accuracy and usability:

• Imported the dataset pet-cats-usa-reference-data.csv.
• Cleaned animal-life-stage values by removing blanks, stripping text, and converting to integers.
• Binned ages into Kitten, Adult, Mature, and Senior categories.
• Parsed the animal-comments column to extract if the cat is a hunter and how many prey per month caught.

Counts of cats tracked by life stage and sex

Prey caught per month by life stage and hunting status

Age vs prey caught per month by sex

Limitations & Next Steps

• Owner‑reported data → recall & detection bias
• No spatial/temporal context in the reference file
• No way to link animal-id to the spatial data provided
• Next:
  • GPS integration if linkage between animal and tracker provided in the future

Thank you

To view the isolated dashboard navigate to the Dashboard tab.

This was generated from the dashboard.qmd file.